14
Naja
My hands shook as I stuffed all of Luisa’s clothes into a suitcase. He’d found us. Found me. I would have to run again, but staying with the Huxley-Grey Pack in the mountains for a week was a good start. I could plan, set all my ducks in a row. Maybe I’d run to Canada. The guy who’d smuggled us out of Mexico said there was some kind of supernatural refuge up there. But I needed time to come up with a back-up plan and to shake off this debilitating heat.
He definitely couldn’t find me now, while I was like this. No way.
It all made sense now, with the whole Manix revelation. His interest in me. His anger at Luisa. The death of my mother. It made sense, and I was so scared. Maybe I should leave Luisa with Tamsin, or maybe the Pack, when I ran.
They’d look after her, protect her. It wasn’t Luisa he wanted. It was me. Always me. He’d just used Luisa to keep me in line. I thought some more, thought about how the Pack had treated Luisa. I’d leave her with Raiden and their future offspring. They’d raise her well, and she’d still have a family. Still have blood. The cubs that Raiden would birth would be her nieces or nephews. Weird concept.
“I don’t know what you are thinking about, Omega, but you’re breaking my heart.”
Ellar’s soft voice behind me made me freeze. I looked over my shoulder, meeting his soft eyes. “I don’t wanna talk about it, Ellar.”
He nodded, coming into the room and wrapping his arms around my waist, pulling me back against his chest. He rested his chin on top of my head, and I was basically cocooned in his warmth. I instantly felt better, like his very nearness was soothing. “Tell me what needs to be done, Naja, and we will do it.”
What needed to be done? That was the problem—I didn’t know either. So I just focused on thenext thing.And then I would do thenextnext thing. And then the one after that. One step at a time.
“Luisa will need her toys. They’re in the little tub by the TV. And the food, no need for it to go to waste.” Once you’d been starved, you didn’t waste food. You squirreled it away in places like wardrobes, and chimneys.
Ellar nodded. “I’ll put it all in the van.”
While he was gone, I put the rest of Luisa’s stuff in the suitcase. Her blankie, her teddies, diapers, sippy cups. Everything. Luisa was never coming back here. When her suitcase was full, I moved to my room and did the same. Well, kind of. I left a lot behind, but it was just stuff. Luisa was the most important thing, and I could always get more stuff. Everything I considered irreplaceable fit into a battered backpack. I threw in some extra clothes, my stash of cash, and a few pictures of my mom, and Luisa as a baby. That was it. The sum total of irreplaceable objects in my life.
I needed to get out of here. He was probably watching the house, and he’d love the smell of my fear. And if he could smell my fear, he could smell all the males in here. It was probably the only thing stopping him from waltzing in right now and taking what he wanted.
A part of me wished he would. That same part wished that Gatlin would grab his head and tear it clean off his shoulders. Maybe bowl it down the street. Something visceral and graphic, so I’d know once and for all that our nightmare was over and my personal boogeyman was dead.
Ellar was back, and this time Raiden was with him. They both looked at me with concern, and I figured I must look like absolute shit.
“I’m okay, really. Just eager to be gone.”
Raiden’s nose twitched. “That’s only partly true.”
I shrugged. I could give him pretty lies, or he could have silence. I wasn’t ready to hand them my truth yet, every ugly, heinous minute of it. “That's all I can give you right now.”
Ellar wrapped an arm around my shoulders and nodded. “That’s okay.” He picked up my backpack. “Is there anything else you need?”
I shook my head, and sank into the side of his body. He kissed my temple and it wasn’t a lecherous gesture. It was pure comfort. Raiden stroked his hand down my arm, his eyes filled with something I wasn’t going to analyze too hard.
Seven appeared with Luisa on his hip. She was clutching her stuffed bear, talking to it like it was talking back. He paused. “Do you want to take her?” he offered softly, and I knew it wasn’t because he was sick of holding her, but because he wanted me to be comfortable.
I shook my head. “She looks happy.” That grin spread across his face again. Fuck, he was hot. He had these dirty blond good looks, like every boy your mama should have warned you about. I mean, not my mama because that would have been hypocritical. But he had short hair that bordered on too long, so it fell across his forehead and he was constantly combing it back with his fingers. Piercing blue eyes that just burned with emotion, though what that emotion was varied. Right now, it was somewhere between pride and lust.
And that body…
Raiden cleared his throat. “We need to get on the road,” he said, sounding pained, and I saw him palming his dick behind his jeans.
Boy, was he right. The sooner we got to safety, the sooner we could all let go.
I followed Seven out into the living room. I took one last look around before walking through the front door and out into the front yard where they’d parked the minivan. The irony of five huge supernatural warriors in the back of a soccer mom van was not lost on me. I watched the curtains across the road twitch as my neighbors tried to figure out what the hell was going on.
When I noticed the carseat in the van, I frowned. Finlo came around, his face passive like he was ready for an argument. “Don’t be mad.” Well, that was never a good start but I stayed silent, giving him my bestdon’t fuck with mestare. “The last part of the trip to our place is inaccessible by car. We have ATVs. It's better for the safety of our Pack. Ellar will run up to get the ATV and collect us from the base of the mountain, and then Seven will return the rental.” He stepped closer, his lip caught between his teeth. “Splitting up the Omegas would be too much for my Alpha right now. We need you both together so we can protect you. I promise you won’t be trapped though. I’ll give you the keys to your own ATV as soon as we get there.”
I felt like alarm bells should be going off in my head, because surely this was a way to get permanently abducted. ‘Come to my inaccessible mountain home, where there’ll be no possibility of rescue. I promise we’ll be good.’
However… “Okay. That should be fine.”
